User blog:High Prince Imrahil/Deo Vindice!: In Defense of Dixie
Out of all the outrageous lies that have been propagated by the Yankee victors over the years, none remains more prevalent, yet more absurd then the belief that "The South just wanted to keep its slaves!" I simply can't sit around to watch my beloved Dixie be maligned any more by these ridiculous lies that two seconds and an idiot with a search search browser could disprove. Let me preface this by saying, as I'm sure you're all well aware, I do not defend or support the practice of slavery. It is an evil and outmoded form of labor that should not, and will not, ever return to this nation again. I would also like to say, this is not blindly copy and pasted from some blog on the internet, as some people are apt to do. I will attempt to cite all important references, and if I miss anything, feel free to tell me. When discussing anything about The Southern War for Independence, it's important to note first that we are reading a victor's account. Any tale spun by any conqueror after they have just subjugated a land, should probably be held to some scrutiny. I ask that you disregard your preconceptions of Yankee history books, and just listen to an opposing point of view for once. There are those who will never step away and consider the facts, instead relying exclusively on what state-sponsored education has taught them, and ignoring other viewpoints. These, sadly, are doomed to be spoon-fed all their information from the Federal Government, and will never know anything but its propaganda. Do me a favor, folks. Do it for Old Imrahil. Just for a moment, for a fraction of a second, open your mind to the ever-so-small chance that you might-perhaps- be wrong. After all, remember just a year ago, I too was as blue-coat-wearing, Lincoln-loving, North-supporting Yankee myself. But I did an independent, objective study in history, and this is where it has taken me. '--THE SOUTH FOUGHT THE WAR TO PRESERVE SLAVERY--' I know a number of you are already beyond this simple lie, in the category of "The South wasn't fighting for ''slavery per se, but having slavery still gave The Yankees the moral high ground". I take my hat off to you. You have seen through the first, and most ridiculous Yankee lie spread about The South - that they were ''fighting the entire war to preserve slavery! The absurdity of this propaganda comes when you understand that between seventy to eighty percent of Confederate soldiers and sailors were not ''slave owners(1)! In fact, even of the minority that ''were slave owners, only less then three percent of the southern population could be qualified as "aristocratic", meaning the rest had five or fewer slaves, and had to work alongside them in the fields to make a living. (2) Not only the common soldiers, but the majority of The South's most famous generals weren't slave owners. A partial list includes General Robert E Lee the southern high commander, General Joseph Johnston the famous commander of the western theater, the energetic young "Last Cavalier" General JEB Stuart, and the hero that saved the Southern army at Sharpsburg, General AP Hill. Before we go any further, let's make sure we clearly understand the full extent of Southern sacrifice. To put it into a modern context, let's compare the casualties to those of World War II. During the Second World War, The United States of America lost over three hundred thousand military personnel, a devastating tragedy to our nation. Here's the kicker. If America lost personnel in World War II at the same rate (per capata) as The Confederate States of America did during The War of Southern Independence, there wouldn't have been three hundred thousand casualties. There would have been six million. Six million. Mull those numbers over for a few moments. The War of Southern Independence was no walk in the park. It was one of the bloodiest, deadliest, most terrible conflicts in American history. These soldiers were going through'' hell''. So Southern soldiers and sailors, the vast majority of whom didn't even own slaves, overseen on both eastern and western theaters high commanders who hated slavery, marched against a numerically superior and better equipped force, and endured four long and deadly years of hardships... all in order for a few rich men to keep their slaves? Hmmmmmmmm... To quote Patrick Henry when he refused to come to the Constitutional Convention, "I smell a rat!" No, somehow I don't think that the men of The South would have thrown away everything they'd ever owned and loved, and march away with The Army of Northern Virginia just to defend a luxury for a handful of aristocrats. So what was the south fighting for? George Washington Bolton of the Twelfth Louisiana Volunteer Infantry CSA, sent this encouragement in a letter to his family back home: "You seem to be in low spirits and fearful we will not gain our independence. So long as there is an arm to raise in defense of Southern liberties, there is still hope. We must prove ourselves worthy of establishing an independent Government." (3) Ah. Here I believe we have hit the nail on the head. This is just one of hundreds of letters home in which soldiers of The Confederacy explain exactly what it is they're fighting for (4). And despite what absurd Yankee propaganda has told you, it wasn't some evil vendetta against blacks. They fought for the very same principles their forefathers had championed over the green fields of Lexington and the far away highlands of Scotland - the right of self-government. ' ' '--SLAVERY - THE MORAL HIGH GROUND--' With that out of the way, it's time we move on to the view that the majority of you hold - you recognize that The War of Southern Independence was not a war over slavery - but since the South had slaves and the North did not, you think it gives the Yankees a moral high ground. First of all, I would like to start out by saying that your view is entirely reasonable, and I respect it. Unlike the absurd Yankee myth of a "war over slavery", your viewpoint is based in fact. However, I respectfully disagree, and here I will outline my reasons why. I'll begin this discussion with the words of Southern author James Ronald Kennedy, who once said: "nothing in American history has stirred, or continues to stir more passion than the institution of African servitude. With the mention of the word 'slavery', rational thought disappears only to resurface after the South has been thoroughly flailed, kicked, and punished for the sin of involuntary servitude." Slavery was an evil practice. No sane person disputes that fact. And as much as we argue about relative morality, there's no question that guilt'' is'' deserved. The only question, is: to whom does that guilt belong? Modern Yankees try to pin all the guilt and evil of the practice on The South. I intend to put forward evidence that The North was co-equally responsible for the evils of the slave trade. Again I ask you, as your friend, to look at this issue with an open mind. I present to you the same strategy as writer James Kennedy, when I ask the following questions: 1. Who first legalized slavery in 'America'? 2. Who first attempted to prohibit the importation of slaves? 3. How was slavery abolished in the North? 4. How were freed blacks treated in the North? '-WHO FIRST LEGALIZED SLAVERY?-' I'm going to do my very best to keep this brief. I'm sure you have a very busy life and don't have time to read a fifty page essay on the history of the slave trade. The slave trade is actually a topic of interest to me. Very few Americans know much about it, and the little they do know has been spoon-fed to them by Yankee propagators to implicate The South as the villain of that evil business. It might surprise you to know that most slaver ships didn't come from the ports of Charleston or New Orleans or any place in Dixie. No, it was the New England Yankee that joined the ranks of the most nefarious traders in the world - the trans-Atlantic slave trader. The New England slave trade, which started in 1640, was maintained legally and illegally for more then two hundred years. Even after Congress had outlawed the importation of slaves into the United States, Yankee slavers found ready markets in the Caribbean and South America, where ninety-four percent of the African slaves ended up(5). In 1831, and Englishman by the name of Captain Isaacs made the following statement about the Yankee slavers: "Few have visited it port of Lamu except enterprising Americans whose star-spangled banner may be seen streaming in the wind where many other nations would not design to traffic." The story goes that there were so many Yankee slavers active in Zanzibar that the local population thought Great Britain was a subdivision of Massachusetts. Even into modern times, the name for cotton in that part of the world is "Americani"(6) Interesting story, by the way. During this time most civilized nations were trying to put an end to the slave trade. Although the United States had outlawed the trade, the government had not signed an agreement with the great powers of Europe to allow their agents to board and search American vessels. Because of this situation, most European slave ships kept at least one American national and a United States flag handy. If they were stopped by a European vessel, the European captain of the slave ship would execute a quick sale of his vessel to the American, hoist up the Stars and Stripes and be safe from capture. This American was known as "The Captain of the Flag"(7) and the flag was the same Stars and Stripes that Yankees would fly as they invaded the south singing "glory, glory hallelujah". Daniel Mannix, in his book Black Cargo states, "... the flag especially if it was American proved to be ample protection for a slaver."(8) Here I will pause a moment and speak to those of you who would see the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia destroyed. The American flag was literally used as a protection device to evil traders that illegally transported kidnapped slaves across the Atlantic. Do you support the removal of this flag as well? If so, then you are perfectly consistent in your views, and I respect you entirely. But if you cry out for the removal of The Battle Flag of Northern Virginia, while at the same time advocating the flag that flew over slaver ships that terrorized the Caribbean for two centuries... may I suggest that you might be the least bit inconsistent in your views? Anyways, as much as I could go on for pages about Yankee cruelty in the slave trade, I'll try and wrap this up. Massachusetts, the capital of the slave trade in America, traded not only African slaves, but enslaved Native Americans! The pious New Englander had no moral qualms. These are the worlds of New England's "great" founding father Cotton Mather: "We know not when or how these Indians first became inhabitants of these mighty Continent, yet we may guess that probably the devil decoy'd these miserbale savages hither, in hopes that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or desturb his Absolute Empire over them."(9) In 1646 the colony passed a law by which Indians could be seized, held as slaves, and exported for sale. The trading of Native Americans was the beginning of the Yankee slave trade. This was to continue legally until 1808 and illegally until the War for Southern Independence. It's also worth a moment to contrast this with how the Southern colony of Virginia dealt with Native Americans. While Massachusetts was still busy kidnapping and enslaving the American Indian, Virginia passed a law that made it'' illegal to enslave or deport a Native American under ''any circumstances. Yet Virginia and the rest of the South are ridiculed and scorned by the self-righteous Yankees, who ignore that it was Northern colony of Massachusetts that first engaged in the slave trade. Totally ignored are the human beings - both Native American and African - that suffered under unjust Northern slavery. The evil inflicted upon them is swept under the rug in a great torrent of South-bashing. Perhaps it is these men and women, not the Confederates, who are the greatest victims of the Yankee propaganda. Who first legalized slavery? '' ''-The Northern colony of ''Massachusetts'' '-WHO MADE THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO END THE SLAVE TRADE?-' For some of you, the answer to this second question may be as surprising as the first. When most people think of abolishing slavery, they think of the terrorist John Brown, radical Republicans, or Lincolns invasion of the south. Perhaps it's worth noting that long before these people were waging their war of anti-South propaganda, the noble Southern state of Virginia had gone on record as opposing the slave trade. By an act of the General Assembly of the state of Virginia, while Patrick Henry was governor, the state outlawed the slave trade in Virginia(10). This was done in fall of 1778, ten years before Massachusetts and thirty years before the British parliament acted on the vile trade. This law not only prevented the importation of slaves but also stipulated that any slave brought into the state contrary to the law would be then and forevermore free(11) This action of Virginia was the first in the entire civilized world prohibiting the slave trade. But even this was not the first time Virginia had attempted to stop the slave trade. The House of Burgesses had many times before attempted to stop the slave trade, only to have its laws overruled by the royal governor.(12) The royal governor, who was appointed by the king, was acting on behalf of the king. Thomas Jefferson, a Southerner from Virginia, stated that one of the reasons the people of Virginia felt compelled to revolt from Great Britain was that the British had forced the state to endure the slave trade (13). Jefferson stated that the king had "refused us permission to exclude by law" the slave trade. James Madison, also of Virginia, said this of the slave trade: "The British Government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this infernal traffick."(14) Virginia led the way for the entire South on this "infernal traffik". Throughout the South a movement formed to put an end to the trade. But the commercial interests first of England and then New England put a stop to this effort. What an odd sense of morality to say that it is wrong to own a slave, but not to kidnap slaves and sell them. Though I suppose we should be very used to twisted Yankee morality by now. It should be very clear why the United States Constitution protected this infernal traffic for twenty years after the adoption of the Constitution. It was the commercial interest of the North that led to include the provision for the protection of the slave trade. This provision was inserted into the new constitution over the objections of Virginia and other Southern states (15) Indeed when the South seceded from the union, a clear prohibition was written into Article 1, Section 9, of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. It was the Confederate constitution, not the United States constitution that made the first prohibition of the slave trade. It was said that as the Yankee bluecoats came pillaging the south singing glory, glory, hallelujah, they had the money from the sale of slaves jingling in their pockets. It was the people of Virginia, not the people of Yankeedom, and most definitely not the people of New England who made the first move to end the slave trade. '' '' Who made the first attempt to end the slave trade? ''-The Southern state of ''''Virginia'.'' '-HOW WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN THE NORTH?-' There are very few things in this world that anger me quite as much as self-righteous Yankees. They pat themselves on the back and talk about how moral and pious they are, as "we didn't need an invading army to free our slaves". They'll tell you stories about the glorious land of Freedom and Equality, that had to constantly fight back assaults of evil hate-filled Southerners. They rail on about the "Glorious Union" so much, you'd think they were a German officer talking about The Fatherland. Lest the Yankees get their egos too inflated, I will remind them that all ''the states had slavery when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Not a single Northern state rushed out of the capital building and immediately set all its slaves free. The system of African slavery was never very profitable for the North. And if Yankees have an eye for one thing, it's money. A few years after the shocks of The American War of Independents faded away, the Northern states began to gradually remove its black population. Today, we're expected to believe that they disposed of slavery simply because they were morally upright and righteous people, and it seemed like the right thing to do. Riiiiiiiiiight.... As, uh, highly believable as that sounds, I think I'm going to have to disagree. Like everything else in Yankeedom, the end of slavery was spurred on first and foremost by greed. This is clearly seen by the way in which the North "freed" its slaves. '''No law was ever passed in the North that granted freedom to a person already in slavery.' Think about that for a moment. In other words, the property rights of Northern slave holders were always protected by the Northern States (something they must have forgotten to do when they came down South). After a certain date and a child reached a certain age, he or she would be free. All people who were slaves when the law was past would forever remain slaves. New Jersey for example. In New Jersey he or she would have to be born after 1804, and have reached the age of twenty-one years. A slave woman who was fifteen in 1804 would remain a slave for life. If, at the age of thirty (1829) she gave birth to a child, that child had to live in bondage until the age of twenty-one years (1850) before it would be free. Now remember, that mother was still a slave for life in the good ole land of Yankeedom. In fact, just ten years before the War for Southern Independence, there were 236 slaves for life in New Jersey alone. (16) If The North were indeed the Great Land of Freedom and Racial Equality that modern day Yankees try and make it out to be, why wouldn't they just do away with slavery? If they were truly motivated by nothing more then a base desire to give blacks freedom, then why didn't they simply abolish slavery in one bold stroke? Greed. By freeing only the people born into slavery after a certain time and age, the Yankee protected and thereby recognized the master's right in his property. No Northerners were ever deprived of their slave "property" that they owned at the time the law was passed Now for the killing stroke, the final deathblow to the absurd myth of a Free and Equal Yankeedom: there was no law prohibiting the Northern slave owners from taking their slaves out of the state and selling them in other parts of the country. Think about that for a few moments. There was no freedom. ''All that happened was that the Yankee slave owners sold all their slaves to the South, and made a tidy profit. And even if the Yankees aren't a pious as they make themselves out to be, the do have an eye for profit. With only one exception, every single Northern state of the original thirteen states abolished slavery in this manner. The state of Massachusetts never repealed its law on slavery.(17) I present to you that the North's emancipation profiteering was also racially motivated. It allowed them to get rid of a people they did not want to keep in Northern society. It had the effect of preventing a large increase in the numbers of free blacks in the state. The pious self-righteous Yankees did not want the Negro in his state. To reinforce this point, in 1788, just eight years after the state of Massachusetts started its emancipation of its slave population, it passed a law ordering every black, mulatto, or Indian who came into the state and remained two months to be whipped publicly. This punishment was to be repeated if the Indian, mulatto or black didn't leave.(18) This law remained until 1834, by which time it had done its work of purging Massachusetts of "undesirables". The North was hardly a paragon of virtue. Indiana's constitution stated that "...no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state"(19). Illinois (The home state of that "great emancipator" Lincoln) in 1853 enacted a law "... to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state"(20). Not satisfied with a mere statute, in 1862, even while its bluecoats were away pillaging the south, an amendment to the states constitution passed by an overwhelming majority stating "... No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state"(21). I could rail on for hours about The North and I have enough citations to fill a barn, but for now I shall abate in the interest of time. The takeaway here, is that Yankeedom was hardly the paragon of virtue its ardent supports make it out to be. Its system of "abolishing" slavery consisted of basically selling all its slaves to The South, collecting profit, then disallowing free blacks from ever entering their states again. Yes, yes, definitely sounds like the ''pinnacle of racial equality. How was slavery abolished in the North? ''-By a system of gradual emancipation that allowed the Northern slave owners to sell their slaves to the South, and thus divest themselves of human responsibility while making a lot of money in the process.'' '-HOW WAS THE FREE BLACK TREATED IN THE NORTH?-' To answer in a few words: not very well. As you might guess from the discussion above, the life of a free black in The North was not all that the Yankee propaganda would have us believe. In the North, for instance, the free black was not allowed to vote or in many cases to testify in a court of law. Yankee propagators may talk about the underground railroad and the great freedom Yankeedom afforded, but in reality things weren't quite so. The North offered blacks only semi-freedom: somewhere in between a white man and a slave, but they were always in an inferior social and legal position. ' ' '--CONCLUSION--' If you wish to debate from a Constitutional or legal standpoint that the South was wrong to secede, be my guest. But arguing that the conflict had something to do with slavery, or that The North had the moral high ground from a racial standpoint, is folly. As Abraham Lincoln said on August 22, 1862 in a letter to Horace Greely: "If there be those who would not save the ''Union'' unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the ''Union'' and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it... What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the ''Union'."'' Consider these things well my friend. A forgotten war of a hundred and fifty years ago is swiftly becoming a hot topic once again as those who conquered The South wish to take down even the flags and memorials its brave people have to honor the fallen. You will have to decide where you stand. I hope that, even if I didn't change your mind, I at least encouraged you to take a look at the opposing point of view. If you're looking for a good Southern novel to actually, you know, get the other side of the story, I would highly suggest James Kennedy's The South was Right!. He's a Southern Nationalist, and a little out there, but he makes some very excellent points on the subject of The War for Southern Independence. My purpose in writing this is to tell you about my point of view, not to start another political flame war. I will immediately shut down the comments on this blog. I will delete, without reading, anything posted on my wall. If you have legitimate questions concerning the worldview I have laid out here, you are more then welcome to give me your queries via a Discord PM. In closing, I would like to say that even writing this has been quite a ride. I've been bouncing between websites and books for the past few days to get all the research and information I needed. I hope you have honored my labor by reading with an open mind. If the need calls for it, I might make another blog post on The South's Constitutional and legal rights to be free. But as for the moment, I think a post debunking the propaganda of a Glorious Righteous Perfect Union marching against an evil, hate-filled south was long overdue. Thank for reading this, my friends. Thank you for opening your minds and hearts to something that might be uncomfortable for you. Because in the end, the truth will always win out. Farewell, and good luck. ''Deo Vindice''''' Category:Blog posts